On Sunday 16 June 2002, Kancho Nenad, Sensei Martin and Sempai(s) Natalie and Trevor attended the first ever seminar held in Perth by Wing Chun Kung-fu Grandmaster William Cheung.
The Melbourne-based Master is arguably the world's foremost authority on Wing Chun Kung-fu. Furthermore he is considered by many to be the sole inheritor of the Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu system having been a student of the late Master Yip Man in Hong Kong (whose other famous student was Bruce Lee). In fact it was William Cheung who introduced Bruce Lee to Yip Man's school and in so doing helped lay the foundation of his junior's rise to star status. Of course Bruce Lee is now long dead and so, as Sempai Natalie observed, meeting and training with Master Cheung is as close as any of us can ever get to Bruce Lee now.
We first caught up with Master Cheung on the Friday before the seminar at Ray-Hana's martial arts supply store as Sunil Parek, the owner of the store, and sponsor of the seminar had invited us to come and meet him beforehand.
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(Above: At Ray Hana's store - Trevor Aung Than, Grandmaster Master William Cheung, Kancho Nenad Djurdjevic and Sunil Parek of Ray Hana's)
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(Above: Master William Cheung with Kancho Nenad at Ray Hana's)
The following morning there was an article in Saturday's 'West Australian' magazine which we reproduce here for your interest.
The seminar itself was very enjoyable. The group of martial artists present were polite, well controlled and friendly. Master Cheung purposely kept things simple teaching only a few techniques but showing a variety of ways to apply these techniques. As such, he covered defences against empty hand attacks, attacks with knives, sticks, baseball bats, short staffs (jo), iron bars and multiple attackers. He emphasised that it is better to know only one technique well and be able to apply it than to know many but not well enough to use in a self defence situation.
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(Above: The Grandmaster demonstrating at the seminar)
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(Above: knive defence training drills)
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(Above: Sempai Natalie applying a pin and disarm)
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(Above: Kancho Nenad and Grandmaster Cheung at the seminar)
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(Above: The Wu-Wei Dao group with Master Cheung after the seminar)
We thank Sunil of Ray-Hana's martial arts supplies and Sihing Peter Guy for inviting us and of course Grandmaster William Cheung for holding the seminar.